But was the tale I first titled “A Thief with a Conscience?” too good to be true?

Naperville police can’t say for sure. But in the end, the report was filed not as stolen property found but as lost property returned.

We didn’t know that at the beginning, however, when the elderly woman came to us with her story and vehemently stated to an editor, and then later to me, that a middle-aged female had indeed robbed one of her most valuable possessions — a media player she’s owned for 15 years with all her favorite songs — while she was visiting the downtown Naperville Riverwalk earlier this month.

“How quickly you can become a victim,” the woman told me. “…a 79-year-old woman eating a cone with a cord hanging out of my pocket. I must have been the perfect target.”

Getting robbed, especially so intimately, can leave any victim shaken. But this lovely lady said she was even more “stunned” when she went to the police station the following day to report the theft and the officer at the front desk knew exactly what the “thief” looked like because a woman fitting that description had come in only a few hours after the crime to return the item.

The woman told us the stranger easily lifted the media player out of her pocket — the cord was hanging from it and she likely thought it was a phone — then walked into a larger group, which quickly dispersed in multiple directions.

All of which led to speculation by the elderly woman about why this person decided to return her stolen property. Perhaps after seeing it was not a cell phone, she had no use for it. But why take the risk of bringing it to the police station? Why not just toss it in a waste can instead?

Could guilt have been the motivator?

It was a question we asked, as well, and why we figured it would be a great story to pursue.

For two days I attempted to get confirmation from police that this, indeed, could have been a “thief with a conscience.”

Did the mystery woman listen to the elderly lady’s play list — it included inspirational songs from Jackie Evancho and Susan Boyle — and become so moved by the music that she decided to do the right thing?

“Maybe she felt she did not want to be burdened by what she had done,” the elderly woman concluded. “I’d like to think she listened to my music and it changed her heart.”

Unfortunately, even as my deadline came and went, authorities could “not confirm a crime had taken place,” according to Naperville Deputy Chief Jason Arres. That’s because when the elderly lady came in the following day to file a police report, she told the officer at the front desk that perhaps the music device had fallen out of her pocket.

Obviously, from her conversations with us, she strongly believes she was robbed of her property. But because cops couldn’t say for sure that was the case, I had to scrap my headline about a thief changing her tune.

I’m bringing this all up anyway to make another point. No doubt you read and hear about — perhaps even agree with — the claim about fake news in our business and that journalists can’t be trusted to give you the real story. I just want to throw out a reminder that we really do work to make sure what we are giving you as fact is, indeed, just that.

Not that long ago, the Naperville Sun posted a story about the Wagner Farms farmstand not reopening because the family had sold the property. And while it was pretty much common knowledge the land would be turned into a subdivision, that could not be confirmed late in the day as deadline came and went.

And so, the story’s last line stated “No information was available on what will be built on the land” … which led to a reader questioning the staff’s journalism chops since, well, everyone and their mother knew what the property was going to become.

That, in turn, prompted an editor’s response that we can’t publish information as fact unless it’s been verified. And I’m happy to say, the reader replied by not only apologizing but thanking the paper for doing its job.

Which, in itself, is about as rare as a good Samaritan (or a thief?) returning an elderly lady’s music player.